Tune In Turn On - Benny Golson

 

The Swinger

Tune In Turn On
To The Hippest Commercials Of The Sixties
Benny Golson
Produced by Tom Wilson
Arranged and Conducted by Benny Golson
Director of Engineering: Val Valentine
Recording and Remix Engineer: Gary Kellgren
Cover Art and Photo: Jon Henry
Cover Design: Acy R. Lehman

Verve V-8710
1967

From the back cover: Bet me that the next person you hear humming "Music To Watch Girls By," doesn't know he's spreading propaganda for Pepsi-Cola. The odds are he doesn't.

Madison Avenue has been giving us The Treatment – the subliminal Musical Treatment. They have been cleverly feeding us such irresistibly catchy tunes that we've been swallowing the message (or massage, depending upon which side of McLuhan you're on), while swinging the melody.

Madison Avenue, capital of the advertising industry, has emerged as the most creative force in Show Business. Television commercials are now rated by critics as fresher and bolder than the programs that surround them. These days, we head for the icebox during the show. We'd rather miss a shoot-out at the Bar-X Ranch than miss a bar of Happiness Is.

Benny blows more than smoke rings, a storm would be more like it, in this Mad Ave. medley. Herein, Benny is the "Swinger," "right any time of the day," and a "Cool Whip" "no matter what shape your stomach's in" – thanks to another pair of sponsors.

Golson has fun and so does the listener who digs the wit and style of his glistening arrangements. The TV themes in TUNE IN... TURN ON are the launch pads for these superbly powered probes into the gravity-free world of Golson's musical imagination.

Benny has been one of the front-ranking names in jazz for the past 15 years. Starting from his early days as saxophonist with the Bull Moose Jackson blues band, Golson has swung through all of jazz's fads and phases. He has played with, and composed and arranged for, such diverse stylists as boppists Tadd Dameron and Dizzy Gillespie, such traditionalists as Johnny Hodges and Earl Bostic, and such avant-gardists as John Coltrane. Some of the most brilliant jazz conceptions were incubated by Benny during his collaboration with trumpeter Art Farmer in their world-famed Jazztet during the late 1950's. As a composer, Golson has already achieved a kind of immortality for "I Remember Clifford," a eulogistic ballad for his friend, trumpet star Clifford Brown.

In this set, Benny would rather swing than switch. Here is the clear, unfiltered taste of a kingsized talent. This is Golson Country! Dig it. – Elliot Horne

Music To Watch Girls By
Wink
The Disadvantages Of You
No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)
Right Any Time Of The Day
Music To Think By
Fried Bananas
The Magnificent Seven

Cool Whip
The Golden Glow
The Swinger
Happiness Is